E3 2010 – Our First Impressions of the Nintendo 3DS!
One of the biggest things to see and experience at this year’s E3 has no doubt been Nintendo’s little curiosity of not-so-large proportions: the Nintendo 3DS. When it was officially announced, gamers scratched their heads. While some wondered why Nintendo would continue to divide and conquer a market that they are already the much decided industry leader in (especially so soon after their release of the DSi and the DS XL systems) others wondered more about how you could even perform 3D on a portable system… and without glasses!
Well, with the rapidly expanding mobile phone gaming market eating up increasing chunks of Nintendo’s market, it was time for the industry sales leader to push forward again, and soon, with the Nintendo 3DS. I made it a point during yesterday’s E3 festivities to head over to Nintendo and experience this curious little device for myself, if only to put my own questions to rest. Hopefully, in doing so, I’ve answered some of yours as well!
The 3D Image
It works pretty impressively. While waiting in the long line (which moved pretty quickly), Nintendo reps were on hand with 3DS systems to show you a short display of several preprogrammed 3DS scenes. These included iconic, frozen in time set ups from games like Mario Galaxy 2 (Mario riding on Yoshi), New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Metroid and (in what I hope is a hint at things to come) Pikmin! They could be manipulated a bit using the left thumb pad (it’s got a left thumb pad AND a D-Pad) so you could take a look around and get the full 3D effect. Everything looked extremely crisp in both the top and bottom screens.
Rather than simply switching the 3D feature on and off with a button, the 3DS features a slider which lets you find your own “sweet spot” for your specific eyes. You can take the images you are seeing from full on 3D and slide them all the way down to a basic DS 2D flat look (which still looked a ton better than the current DS’s resolution). I found while playing the games on hand that for puzzle and story games like Professor Layton (we’ll get to that!), you can crank the 3D all the way up because the mainly still frames aren’t going to fry your retinas as they glide around in 3D. For action games like Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, you probably want to slide the setting to about half way so the 3D looks great without being rolled over by the constant movement on screen. This is very much like looking at those old lenticular posters in the mall (“a schooner IS a sailboat”) and eye fatigue is going to be the main complaint early on in this system. Luckily, Nintendo has been smart enough to leave the control of it up to the user.
The System
The system feels great, as it should after so many iterations of the DS. Really, there aren’t a whole lot of design changes (why would there be?) and I can quickly go through them. The thumb-pad is superior to the one on my PSP and responds just the way you’d expect it to. It isn’t as textured as the PSP’s either so it won’t feel like you’re developing a blister as you’re running around as Kid Icarus in a 3D over the shoulder game (like I felt while playing the PSP God of War). The volume slider is along the left side of the system, a change from my classic DS that has it on the bottom front. There are flat start and a stop buttons just below the bottom touch screen this time but sandwiched between them is a Wii-like home icon button. None of the games that I played used this button but I’m guessing that it works like the Wii to let you check battery power, reset the system or go to your main system menu. Maybe we’ll all get lucky and it’ll also bring us to our online friends list (please, please, please)! Other than these additions, the size of the unit is somewhere around the DSi and DS Lite and the top L and R triggers are right where they’re supposed to. There’s also a DSi style camera on the back that shoots in 3D. I know what you’re thinking. “That’s ridiculous. Of course it does. We’re IN 3D” Well, let me explain in the next section.
The Games
What good is a system without the games? It’s not good at all. Luckily, the 3DS has a huge slate of games coming to support it’s launch with not only first party games like Paper Mario, Nintendogs (and Cats!) and Kid Icarus (!) but also premier games from third parties like Konami, THQ, Activision, Sega and Capcom. A lot of the companies that have seen success on the DS are back with follow up titles that enhance their tried and true formulas as well like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy publishers Square Enix and Professor Layton developers LEVEL-5. I only had 20 minutes with all of the games on hand so let me get through them!
I started out with what I believe was Hollywood 61 from Ubisoft. This isn’t a finished name but the game should appeal to people who liked the DS game Hotel Dusk. It’s a mystery puzzler in which I followed a detective along the streets of Hollywood in a car as he broke down the most recent mystery. The 3D looked pretty cool in the frame, with the background image moving naturally through the car windows. Once we go to our location (a closed theater), I had to turn on a spotlight for the stage by solving a puzzle with light bouncing off of mirrors. Not a whole lot of 3D to see there but the depth of everything still looked impressive, even in the still frames. The next game over was Battle of Giants: Dinosaur Strike. Bibbiani literally played this game for about a minute before he put it down like it had bit him. I played the game long enough as a T-Rex to kill another dinosaur and then smiled and walked away. It moved okay… I’m just not into a game where I have to go into quicktime events and hit buttons in a sequence to knock over a stegosaurus.
Supposedly, all of your old DS library is still compatible with the new system (although they obviously won’t be in glorious 3D). On hand though, was a 3DS with a mini movie of old Nintendo 8 bit games that had been transferred to 3D. This included Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda. Although Zelda didn’t have a lot of depth to the top down view, the original Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. looked pretty good as you moved side to side and the screen scrolled with you. Excitebike also looked good and the ball smacking cut scenes in golf looked solid with the 3/4 depths in those games. The original Punch Out! looked GLORIOUS though. Holy crap. Corey Roberts is going to lose his shit. Every time he comes over to my house he plays classic Punch Out! on the Wii. For the first time, this game really breathed. The depth in the screen just pops. Poor Corey. His mind is going to explode.
The next game I got my hands on is Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle (working title). Considering that Laura and I just spent small parts of our honeymoon playing the first two Professor Layton titles (I finally finished the first one!), I was beyond excited to see this. The over world map navigation is different now and you use a roving magnifying glass with the stylus to go over things in the town that highlight when they’re important. When you click them, you get a 3D puzzle. Although Professor Layton is a simply animated game that doesn’t cry out for the 3D treatment, just seeing Professor Layton and his assistant Luke talk with a dynamic 3D background and word bubbles that jump off the screen made me kind of giddy. And yes, you have to be pretty giddy to freely admit that you were giddy. This is a day one purchase.
I peeked over a few people’s shoulders as they played the new Paper Mario and Resident Evil Revelations (really, what’s left to be revealed… anybody?). Paper Mario looked a LOT like the moments in Paper Mario Wii where you stretch out the background and run through the background. Unlike even on the Wii, for the first time, this franchise LOOKED like it was a 2D character interacting in a 3D world. As great as the earlier games in the series were, this looks like the one that will end up being my favorite and capture the idea I thought was so promising with the series. Resident Evil looked pretty gorgeous. Bibbiani brought up a good point after playing the PS3 with 3D glasses that the glasses make things so dark that your mature titles that go dark to create moody just become dark and muddy. On the 3DS you don’t really have that problem caused by wearing dark glasses and this title looked cool, even if I wasn’t all that crazy about it. Maybe that was because the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 was one 3DS over.
That’s right. The 3DS is going to be home for a remake of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D “The Naked Sample”. Really. That’s the full name. People, I’m telling you that I only saw the opening credit sequence as the camera pushed through the jungle and passed titles and this game looked INCREDIBLE. I thought I was watching a kick ass CGI 3D movie. Everything looked cinematic and moved fluidly. It was breathtaking. Of all of the games on display for the 3DS, this is the one that looked the best, hands down. If this technology is a game changer in the world of portable gaming, this is the proof. I can’t wait to see it again… and that was JUST THE TITLE SEQUENCE!
Okay, it was time to take a picture of the events. Wait, a picture? Yeah, there were a few Nintendo reps lines up offering to take a picture with you on the 3DS. Sure. Why not. Let’s see what this thing can do. Framing up the camera, it was just cool to pass over objects (like the planter!) with the 3DS camera to see how the 3D screen treated them. The deeper the object, the more dynamic the image on screen. Erin (that was her name) asked me to pose and I threw her up a big OKAY hand sign with my outstretched arm. Snap. The photo looked awesome. There I was, in a crisp image, with my hand stretching way out towards the viewer. It looked great. And of course you could move the slider down and get a normal photo of me giving the 3DS a big A-OKAY!
The next game I picked up was Nintendogs + Cats. Cats for the most part aren’t that much fun, so I opted for playing with a beagle. When I had Nintendogs back in the day, I raised a little pug. Then he ran away from home… to Gamestop, and I still think of him fondly. It was cool throwing the ball, frisbee and boomerang with this little beagle puppy. There weren’t that many changes from the original Nintendogs (I’m not playing with a cat) and the voice recognition and stylus activities are all still there. The 3D does make seeing the little guy run around and react to you pretty cool to look at but it is still Nintendogs. Kids and girlfriends (now wives!) will enjoy it but we want something a little more like a game and not a simulation (especially if you own dogs).
So, one of the biggest announcements coming out of the Nintendo press conference Tuesday was the return of Kid Icarus on the 3DS in Kid Icarus: Uprising. Look online and you’ll see some badly shot trailers and some screen grabs. The game was not playable at the 3DS booth but there was a trailer playing that showed the gameplay. The game looks pretty cool and runs at a high speed. At first glance, it really reminded me of Space Harrier on the old Master System (I can’t believe I just called it old) with Kid Icarus taking up space in the foreground and bad guys flying at you from the background and camera right. I was pleased to see that some of the old bad guys were back, including the purple flying eyeballs. In addition to the Space Harrier levels, there seemed to be a few stages and boss battles that reminded me a lot of the God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PSP. I really felt like I was maybe watching Son of God of War or a kid’s translation of the franchise. Regardless, the game moved great and I was pretty impressed with what I saw.
So there you have it. The Nintendo 3DS, coming sooner than any of us expected. I’ll admit that I was one of the naysayers, thinking that Nintendo was ripe for another Virtual Boy-style disappointment in the attempt at cashing in on a bigger entertainment trend. From what I saw yesterday, and with more entries like Mario Kart, Star Fox 3D and a 3DS port of Ocarina of Time (how awesome is that!?!) on the way, it looks like the 3DS will be just another massive success in Nintendo’s history of handheld dominance. For the first time since the release of the original DS, I was completely impressed by what I experienced.
